Eight-Time NCAA All-American Santo Condorelli will not compete for the USC Trojans during the 2015-2016 college season in order to focus on training for the Olympic Games.
Instead, he will make a short move north to Santa Clarita to train with Coley Stickels at the Canyons Aquatic Club.
“I made this decision because Coley is well known for his sprint knowledge and will be able to give me new insight on my stroke and help me with some fine tuning,” Condorelli said. “In addition, I will be in an environment where my only focus will be swimming, which is important.”
Condorelli lived and trained in Lake Oswego, Oregon early in his age group career before moving to Florida to train with the Bolles School Sharks. Stickels is the former head coach of the Lake Oswego Swim Club.
Condorelli was a big contributor to USC’s 4th-place finish at the 2015 NCAA Championship meet. He placed 16th in the 50 free, 10th in the 100 fly, and 9th in the 100 free, for a total of 17 individual points.
The sophomore also contributed to four scoring relays (though he only swam three in finals), including a leg on the meet-closing 400 free relay that won the NCAA title.
Condorelli has been 19.27 in the 50 free, 42.20 in the 100 free, and 45.79 in the 100 fly.
He’s a former U.S. Junior National Team swimmer, but in 2014 changed his sporting citizenship to compete for Canada. Condorelli had an immediate impact upon his new country, winning national titles in the 100 free and 100 fly, and in the process qualifying to compete for Canada at this summer’s World Championships.
Condorelli’s lifetime bests are 48.83 in the 100 meter free and 52.50 in the 100 meter fly.
Now that he’s contending for a spot on the Canadian Olympic Team, swimming the NCAA season and still qualifying for the Olympic Games would become even tougher – the April 5th-10th Canadian Olympic Trials are just a week after the men’s NCAA Championship meet.
The Canyons Aquatic Club primarily serves athletes high-school-aged and younger, however also preparing for a run at the 2016 Olympic Games will be American sprinter Abbey Weitzeil, who has deferred enrollment at Cal for a year to shoot for Rio.
How does this impact his eligibility? Will he still be a Jr next year? He is representing a club during the academic year
Thanks!!
I thought if one represented another federation that they had to live in the new country for a year to swim for them? Not sure how Santo can stay in USA and swim for Canada if he was on the USA National Junior team at one time? I must be misadvised!
That is odd. Maybe they’ve changed the rules in the past couple of years.
I believe he cant collect his national team funding while he’s in the states because canada apparently doesn’t like other countries making them look good. Could be wrong though
I don’t recall any rules about having to live in a country for a certain amount of time in order to represent. I do seem to remember some rule that essentially says an athlete has to wait after representing one country for an international meet before he/she can represent another country. I don’t think Condorelli has ever swam for the US on a senior international team, so he should be good to go.
TheTroubleWithX – there are no residency rules, presuming a swimmer as you said haven’t represented a country internationally. Condorelli hasn’t (National Teams don’t count if there’s no actual competition attached to them), but in the case of, for example, Shane Ryan, he does have to be a resident of Ireland for a year before representing them.
He seems to have done at great job at USC, why move to Coley Stickels?? Coley has never proved himself with an adult male. He has always produced talented younger girls, but not been known to do well with boys/men.
I’m not entirely sure this is in his best interest but good luck to him anyway
Uh, may want to look up the name Cole Cogswell!
His 15-16 boys just broke the 200 FR NAG record and i believe he coached a guy named Roland who did ok under Coley, along with a ton of other guys.
Thanks!
I believe Roland Schoeman, Peter Kropp, Cole Cogswell, and others would disagree with that statement.
Not to mention Santo spent 7 years with Coley at Lake Oswego before Coley left and he moved to Bolles. So that maybe is something.
So glad to see this. Amazing highschool swimmer, but failed to qualify individually for NCAAs his freshman year. Then had a breakout sophomore season and even got an NCAA title. To top it all off he had a great 100 free LCM with a 48.8, I did not expect that. Found a country to represent, and a country that could use his sprinting ability. Great things for a great swimmer, I’ve been watching him since highschool and this is cool to see.